SAN FRANCISCO – The 49ers beat the Dolphins 27-13. Here is the grade for the 49ers coaches.
Coaching: C-. Both the offensive and defensive game plans were weak. On offense, Greg Roman tried to come out passing. Unfortunately, the offensive line – Anthony Davis in particular – was horrendous in pass protection. So the 49ers accomplished next to nothing on offense in the first half.
On defense, the 49ers struggled to stop the quick pass game – they’ve struggled with it all season. The Dolphins started throwing longer passes after they fumbled a punt at their own nine yard line and fell behind by 10 points in the third quarter. If the Dolphins had not made that mistake, they would have been able to stick with the short passing game.
The 49ers offense benefitted from the Dolphins’ fumble as well. Once the 49ers had a 10 point lead in the second half, Greg Roman scrapped John Morton’s drop-back passing game plan and started using the pistol formation almost exclusively. This was effective on one touchdown drive in the third quarter, and on Kaepernick’s 50-yard TD run.
Roman was virtually clueless on third down, in which the 49ers were 2-for-10. The offensive line does not block well on obvious passing downs, and Greg Roman, John Morton and Jim Harbaugh haven’t figured out how to work around the bad pass protection. The 49ers’ best third down option right now is to let Kaepernick scramble and make a play.
A win is a win, but the sacks, QB hits and third down conversion percentage still are troubling for a team that believes it has a chance to go all the way.
With those issues, it will be very tough for the 49ers to beat New England next week. The Patriots score too much for the Niners to keep up when they struggle to keep drives alive. After Suday’s game, Donte Whitner said about the upcoming game against the Patriots, “We understand who’s going to have to win that football game and we think it’s going to be the defense.” Certainly not a vote of confidence for the offense.
I don’t know if the 49ers can beat Seattle the week after, either. The Seahawks ripped the Cardinals on Sunday. The Seahawks are a scary club up in Seattle on that turf with the crowd noise.
The 49ers could easily finish the season 10-5-1, which is a bit shy of my 11-5 prediction this offseason.
49ers RSS feed
Loading ...
The third down woes used to be Alex’s fault and now they are Roman’s. Love it.
All the issues that were on AS are now deflected elsewhere. Third down conversions, no long passes, too many sacks, winning with D and turnovers. Perhaps there are issues other than a game managing qb? Either way, I’m glad they won.
Couldn’t agree more. Seems to me its the same issues with CK as with AS, but now everyone is protecting CK and passing the buck everywhere else. Complex motion plays coming in late leaving the QB with no option but to burn time outs or take a penalty. Predictable running plays and short passing game….thought we were supposed to start airing it out with CK? I don’t see any improvement in the offense, its the same, just with a scrambling QB.
It is the same issues- but Kaep is still a better Qb- he can throw the long ball accurately and he is one of the best ball carriers on the club.
Kaep still hasnt played a bad game but the offense sucks- the OC is a disaster.
It’s time for Grant to go find a new job…..way too biased !!! You are too funny Grant.
Can’t burn timeouts like that against the Patriots next week! Was it crowd noise? It was a home game… Kaepernick looks good sometimes, but Harbaugh looks like he is shielding a lot of Kaepernicks mistakes. Super Bowl teams don’t play like this.
Harbaugh gave up on the superbowl when he switched QB’s. Kaep will be better in the future (likely next year) but Smith would give this team a better chance this year. Granted, this experience might help Kaep next reason when he is leading his team on a playoff run.
Agreed. Kaep is the future, no need to sacrifice the future for Harbs to stroke his own ego. I don’t care who the QB is as long as they win, but this style of play isn’t going to cut it against top teams.
*sacrifice the present*
So when the Kaepernick-led offense can’t convert on 3rd downs and gives up sacks, it’s Roman’s fault. But when a Smith-led offense…. Never mind.
when did smith run for a 50 yard td???
You forgot to mention that inexcusable series after Miami scored a TD in the fourth quarter. A three and out with just no effort at advancing the ball. That is a Greg Roman specialty. The play calling in the red zone on the first two trips was bad, execution even worse. Also, is anyone else tired of us always blowing at least 2 timeouts a game trying to avoid delay of games? This has been a trademark of the Harbaugh/Roman regime since game one of last year. The plays are overly complex, a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. The Niners always seem to be in too much chaos before the snap, time to simplify things. Like late in the game when they ran a running play for James and he tripped over somebody making a very, very late motion play that went right in front of James. It almost ruined the play before in began.
James didn’t trip over somebody making “a very, very late motion play”. He tripped over a blocker’s leg who was lined up on his right and, after the ball was snapped, was moving in front of James to block to the play’s left. I believe it was a defensive lineman lined up in the backfield (Tukuafu?).
The blocker was either too slow to clear James’ front or James was too quick to hit the hole, but yeah, either way James tripped over the blocker’s legs and was somehow able to keep his balance.
And who said Smith is isn’t valuable to the team? Look how many coaches/players must take the blame now where it used to be purely his fault.
ribico,
You’ll get a kick out of this. Just read the comment section for this article Grant wrote about Greg Roman midseason. They mock using Greg Roman as an excuse then, but now, it’s totally acceptable.
http://49ers.pressdemocrat.com/2012/10/inside-the-49ers/who-is-greg-roman/
I agree Aldon and Justin are very valuable to their team.
Come on Mr. Roman,you have a Mazzarrati (spelling?) at QB and you are driving him as if he were the 10 year old Buick you were driving before you bought the new sports car.
Thats a great analogy for our ramblin scrambler, Mazzarati’s are really prone to breaking down just like I expect our elite scrambler will be.
Can’t blame the game planning on the coaches when we have a couch potato like Davis at tackle…
Same team different QB, not much difference at this point. Looks all the same too me. grade C+
Grant, I agree. This coaching staff needs a gut check. Do they believe they can take their team to the Super Bowl? Seems to me they are more concerned about not losing instead of winning.
I know people don’t want to hear it, and I’m not trying to bash CK. But coaching should be even lower because the Offense is not clicking. I’m not a Smither, but he was playing well and the offense had some consistency when he was in, starting with the AZ game, and then the last TD drive before his concussion.
While Kap’s TD run was great, it just reinforces that he may be a running QB.
Pinning the anysmal 3rd down performance on the coaches is silly. 3rd down is where QBs earn their money. CK7 was almost as bad as Alex today.
Actually, Kaep has been better on 3rd down than he was yesterday. He looked confused much of the game. I wonder if the order of his reads needs to be changed. It looks like he is trying to read long to short too much of the time. WCO, at least under Walsh, read short to long.
>>The 49ers could easily finish the season 10-5-1
The division title could easily come down to Qwest Field on Dec 23. Won’t that be fun :/
Rib this is what I’m looking forward to. This game against the Pats is a barometer game, but the one in SEA will be as close to a playoff game as we will see. If the defense can play like they have and the running game is explosive, CK included we might have a chance!
That won’t mean much if we lose to AZ at home in the last game of the year.
The Niners would do well to focus more on fundamentals and less on scheme.
Regarding the N.E. game: take the over.